Civilian's
by Random RE Fan
Summary: In a nut shell it is a story written from a Civilians point of view of the events and happenstances of the Resident Evil world. (Game world) Also my first story for fanfiction, was finally inspired after reading a few authors here.
1. Chapter 1

The nights seemed to get getting longer. All the alerts, news articles about attacks, missing persons, a death cult! This once peaceful city, Raccoon City, had turned into a place of dreary paranoia with a substantially higher crime rate. Suburban people were split between the "Oh nothing will happen to us" denial stage of a crisis. The other half were in the "Doomsday Nay-Sayers" buying up all they could for storage purposes. Realistically, though you had a bunch of silently concerned folks believing in their government and local police, with their S.T.A.R.S unit, to keep at bay whatever was going on. They weren't ready for this. No one was.

Me? I happened to be caught some where between it all. I was an out of shape, slightly paranoid security guard working in the outskirts an older industrial park. It was the industrial boom, modernization that had started a lot of the crime and thus the need for crime awareness. I had taken the job as a security guard with the idea that it would be good, honest, easy work with its ups and downs? I mean that's what a normal job is right? Yea normal, you want to "throw-a-wrench" into patrolling at night? Let the NEWS tell you there has been a rash of missing persons in the forest area not two hundred yards from where most of your night, or some crazy death cult idea! I know right? A paranoid mind doesn't need extra stories to let you believe something is there to get you in the dark, not when the flashlight doesn't always relieve this either, whatever was there could have moved. Oh and the walls, open sky, and just quietness of an abandoned, after hours industrial park? The sounds, they echo and echo. Screams, animals, you name it, I've heard it. After a few months or so you began to place the animal calls, if they are fighting, you do research. You just know or at least you think you do. The only thing you know for sure is when you hear something out of place. Ever hear a rabbit cry? Sounds like a terrified child, a horrifying sound to some, nightmare inducing even.

One night around the end of July was my first encounter, the same week I had seen and heard the Police helicopters heading into the mountains. I was roaming the dark concrete jungle of construction and industrial rigging. Only two colors existed in my peripheral vision black and grey, varies shades there of. The flashlight's beam only revealed a wider range of those two colors. Well a bit of the brown rust color from all the metal wasting away around these parts. Out of habit I walked in a fashion to reduce the sound of my boots echoing down the concrete walls. It got eerie the echo made it sound as if someone was following you perfectly. Again I was avoiding letting my paranoid mind have extra things to use against me. Then there it was the first "out-of-place" echo. I actually believed it to be my mind and its paranoid state until I stopped, trying to focus my ears over my mind, I would prove it wrong. Sadly my heart rate quickened when not only did I hear the echo of a heavy foot fall but another sound all together. Something caught between a groan and a gurgle. I spent the next several minutes lassoing my mind, focusing and gaining a shred of composure. No big deal, yet, find the source, observe and report. Security guard's personal mantra, observe and report.

I swept the path before me with the flashlight. I was currently between two tall warehouses, each step close and cautious. Left over right, not taking another step until first foot was firmly placed. The noise came again this time was very similar to a warning hiss made but with human vocals. Not a fast passing of air but a slow one. As if someone was to simply open their mouth and force an exhale. My mind decided to remind me that it tagged the sound to that airy hiss that happens in the old horror films when a tomb was opened or a black and white film when the vampire first appears. Another heavy step echoed this time however a faint sliding or dragging sound followed. I was coming to an intersection well more like a small loading area that was created behind, rather at the corners of four different warehouses. I knew the area by heart and that it was roughly one hundred by one hundred feet square with alley like the one I was in at the corners. It was currently rather empty, few stacks of random barrels and pallets of things stored here. Was a security light on the far end, was above one of the warehouse dock bay doors. The light itself was blocked by a pallet with four barrels, atop a pallet of four barrels, most likely used oil from the machines around here. At first I used the light available to me, keeping my flashlight pointed down, I could hear smaller sounds now. Shuffling, shifting of pebbles and rocks by someone obviously not trying to be quiet, though I could not get a direct line of sight of the source of the sounds. My mind rattled with all the possibilities: bunch of kids mucking about, a druggy on a horrid trip, a homeless man or two? Perhaps a resurrected ancient god! No, mind was going into the deep end of options, time to reel it back. These things I had dealt with, minus the ancient god but with the NEWS as it was and just everything being too late in the night, early morning. I couldn't fathom why someone would be out here doing anything to alter their state of mind. Crazy will be crazy I suppose.

I stepped out into the open light, moving toward the double stack of barrel-pallets. Was still trying to gather and keep a bit of composure, my heart rate was still louder than the sounds I was trying to track down. Another heavy foot fall, this time it echoed but the sound was closer than the echo. I stopped a moment taking a deep breath cursing the wind for picking this perfect moment to bring some rotting kill scent from the woods through this area. I choked back a gag cresting around the corner of the barrels. The light was bright on this side, displaying clearly the small puddle from the previous mid day rain. Opposite side of the puddle heading the opposite way around as myself was a clear and plain as day wet foot print, the partnered step was just a wet smear.


	2. Chapter 2

I caught a glimpse of movement between the barrels, just for a brief moment. I stepped back, my leg braced, drawing my gun quickly. Just as practiced, thumb on the safety, muscle memory was a fine thing, works even when the mind is doesn't.

"Hello!" My voice was even and steady, nothing like my current state of mind. I was side stepping around the barrels, back tracking, watching where I had just came from. My mind reeled with the possibilities, would I have to shoot? Should I be this scared? Is a witch doctor going to come voodoo me?! I swallowed hard, again lassoing my mind back into some sort of composed state of being irrationally rational. Watch, small splashes, ok those are my steps as I moved side ways, first noise identified. Second, would be my heart beat, like a drum line inside of my head. I stopped moving for a moment. My back was to the large warehouse bay door, it was completely closed. To my right was the double stack of barrel-pallets. Beyond that was a covered pallet, brown tarp covered cube, another mirroring it to my left. Another deep breath the stench from earlier was fading, the wind must have shifted.

After standing long enough to start to feel dumb holding my gun aimed at nothing as well as everything at the same time. With my breathing under control and no "boogey-men" that I need to point my gun at it was back the job, observe and report. I holstered my gun, centered myself once again. I put my hand on the barrel-pallets to peek around, nothing was there but I did see the wet tracks with the sliding-smear mark lead close to the ware house that would have been directly to my left when I had first approached this little clearing. Closing my eyes slowly, I prayed whatever I had just put my hand in would wash off. With a disgusted look I pulled my hand away from the barrels, a thick slime trailed my hand. It was everything I had not to just gag in disgust, the goo was foul smelling, almost rot smelling, could very well have been what the wind had brought me the first time. It was very tacky as well. I shook my hand a few times hoping to sling most of the slime to the ground, worked for the most part. My ears perked a bit as I heard a vehicle approach. I mumbled a soft "shit" under my breath, was probably my boss. Giving my hand another look over, to see the slick-slime I again shook my head before picking up the pace to trot toward the warehouse front, my post.

"Chief Irons. What brings you out to these parts?" I managed to avoid the look of shock; the Chief of Police was here at my post with his personal vehicle, though he used it on duty too.

"Checking to see if you've found any crazy death cultists, a cannibal, or any of these other tabloid non-sense stories." The man was every bit as rotund as I was, perhaps a little stronger in the upper body as well. He adjusted his weight from one side to the other, hiking his belt. His gaze was too the sky, it fell to search the mountain side as before he brushed his fingers over his mustache. "How long have you been working out here?" He lofted his eyebrow at me still rubbing his mustache.

"In this particular industrial park…oh … several years now. I was working at this one when it was the top production or storage place around. Before that new high-tech industrial park was put in. This one is kinda' been reduced to storage, at best." I was trying not to sound nervous, anxiety does horrible things to a person luckily one of my nervous ticks is to instantly start to babble. Some times this just works for me, other times I'm that annoying guy that will talk about just anything and possibly everything. I was also trying to stand with my hands behind my back, not wanting to explain the slime covered bit to the Chief of Police, call me childish but I just didn't think I could explain me looking for a boogey-man and finding just the boogey bit.

"Well if you see anything, call me directly ok? I want to be the first to be notified if any of this stuff is going on. Anything from a: lost hiker, a body in the river, Rabid dogs, it doesn't matter what it is, if it's part of these stories floating around I want to be here before anyone else." He began to grumble as he turned to get back into his car. He smelled of a fresh cigar, I'm not talking about the stale bar smell smokers collect, I mean a fresh expensive cigar that you get when you want to relax. I wrinkled my nose watching the man slump into his car, the lights were almost blinding as I stood there not really knowing what to do. Chief Irons was not my boss but it was still rather intimidating to have the Chief of Police come visit me personally. The stress of the stories and things must be getting to him as well, though obviously for a much different reason. Every call made to the RPD was probably being directed to him in one form or another. Wonder what he did to stay sane through these times?

With my excitement levels for the evening dying down I walked back to my guard shack, little four foot by four foot mostly glass room. Had a table and a small bank of camera monitors, my news paper and coffee. Trust me you do not work nights (3rd shifts or late 2nds anyway) without learning to enjoy coffee. Tonight was almost over. I was very close making it through another night. Though still curious about what I had heard previously, with my thoughts trying to wrap around everything that had happened and only an hour left before it was time to go home. Before doing the nightly reports or anything else I cracked open my cooler, I always packed wet naps because you just didn't know what your hands would get into, cleaned most of the slime from my hand at least enough of it that I felt ok with grabbing my themos. I grabbed the post-it notes we kept on hand. The guard here didn't over lap: leaving two guards working two, ten hour shifts, two hours apart. This schedule confused me but I wasn't in charge of it. So we had "a pass along" log which was little more then a post-it note left for the next guard to read.

Heard some shuffling about and

weird noises around 0430 hours.

Found some wet tracks nothing

further because Chief Irons arrived.

-S/O Smith

I left the note right on the desk, clearing away anything else so to bring attention to the note for the next guy. I sat sipping my coffee, getting the caf-fiend into my system, keeps me coherent on the drive home. The next hour went by very quickly compared to the previous bits of the evening. Before I knew it I was unlocking my car, keys in the ignition. Destination: home. Hopefully I would sleep well tonight, I was mentally exhausted.


	3. Chapter 3

Hello folks, sorry it has been a while. Life gets busy (Plus I forgot my log in for a pretty minute) anyway if you stop in and read please drop me a review or inbox with what you think, tips, criticism, opinions. All authors want to know what people think. We want to entertain. Well I want to know :P. Anyway onward to the story!

Morning followed my slumber very quickly. Almost as if a mere blink had passed before the alarm was blaring at me. I'd grown to hate the noise. The place was small, a single bedroom apartment, who ever had built it had privacy in mind because for an apartment building you didn't hear your neighbors. That was the main selling point for me, small, quite, not too expensive. Was time for the news, I shambled into my kitchenette area, slapping the power button to the small TV there. Another missing persons report was flashing across the bottom of the screen. The R.P.D. had issued it too dangerous to organize search parties and insisted they are taking care of it themselves. S.T.A.R.S. was looking into the Arkley Mountain disappearances, aka, Cannibal murders had taken place.

I shook my head for a few reasons, needed to clear it mostly. Sleep and I had a complicated relationship; I needed it and didn't want it: It made me feel older than I was. Was getting harder and harder to just be up and ready to do anything. I needed at least an hour, no less than one coffee, and a very cold shower. I was laying out my uniform for the day lazily listening to the report. Apparently a woman whom had first reported the "Cannibal Murderers" had now gone missing. She was last seen at her house by her boyfriend whom went to get a few things from the store. When he came back she was gone. None of her clothes were missing, her car was there. That was the last bit of details I gathered before the shower head sputtered and spit the cold water into the opposite wall. I psyched myself for the shock of the temperature change, was something I could never really get used to.

Wind can be a wonderful thing. Since I'd shaved my hair off I had learned the joys of keeping my window down on the way to work with little to no worries I would look unprofessional by the time I got there. Streets were more and more desolate. Very little seemed to be going on, the news must be getting to the people as a whole. Made my drive a little easier, it's the small things in life to be thankful for. Rounding the warehouse, navigating the square maze of roads back to my guard shack I had to do a double take to realize there was a car already here. Odd! Another visitor? I pulled in beside the mystery car, glancing into it briefly: Stack of books, little bit of trash, perhaps a student vehicle? Few thoughts passed through my mind that I had to immediately debunk and forget such as Wizards do not drive cars?! As well as other complete nonsense ideas.

Once out of my car I adjusted my belt, shifted my weight some, made sure all my utility items were where they were suppose to be, muscle memory doesn't work if things are not in the proper place. I stepped into the guard shack and the first things I noticed, all at once: I stepped in something vicious, it smelled faintly of road-kill, and my note had been disturbed but still there. Slowly and carefully I stepped back out of the guard shack, looking down, on the floor was a puddle or say of the clear slime I had found yesterday. That mixed with the smell, was odd I knew nothing that produced a rotting jelly like substance but whatever it was it had to feast upon flies because it smelled of rotting dead animal. Again perhaps not too over powering but the smell had time to build up in the small in-closed area. I propped the door open to air out the tiny space, cool it down some too, little glass box, direct sunlight, oven, a man sized oven. Was too hot to start my reports so I figured I'd walk around first to give everything the time it needed to not be as unpleasant as it was. I hooked my thumbs into my belt and began to head for the warehouses, check them for break-ins, vandalism in general, check the locks, just general observation and reporting.

I was nearing the end of my first rounds when I noticed the clouds rolling in. They had called for a chance of rain so it didn't surprise me much. I meandered until the rain was all but here, put on my rain coat, water proof hat before I started my second rounds, the first rounds covered the part of the park that was closest to the city, generally where I find kids general mucking about with skateboards. Second set of rounds were all the area's closet to the forest. Each set of rounds took me two hours, which checked the whole place. I did this three to four times during a shift. Had my trusty flashlight out this time, the overcast didn't exactly make it dark but it is always nice to be able to chase off some shadows. I had made it to where I was in yesterday's last round, the pallet of double stacked barrels. This time however there was a set of wet boot prints. I had to blink a few times; if they were the other guards they would have been absorbed into the concrete with in minutes. Déjà vu! Caught movement between the barrels, exactly as I had done yesterday my gun was at the ready.

"Identify yourself." I had my commanding voice in check, go me. I quickly side stepped around the pallet of barrels, when I found nothing I began to question my imagination? With a huff I holstered my weapon thankful it wasn't needed but disappointed in my self at the same time. The only "for-sure" thing that was here was this oddly wet trail. Shaking my head I looked at the boot prints leading in the direction of the woods. Only the first few steps were clearly laid out after that it was more of an out-line, someone had walked through the same puddle as yesterday a much different foot print though. My flashlight helped me continue to find a step here, small wet spot there. I didn't so much follow the trail as I assumed the person had kept going in an indicated direction. They had walked about fifty feet along the ware house, came to the intersection and I found a few wet spots heading straight for the woods, straight through this group of buildings. Coming out of the ally per say it had started to rain first noticing the patter sound on the plastic hat cover then all over, tinking sound of it hitting the roofs of the warehouses. I scanned the wood line but there was nothing, with out proper light and the rain that was coming my tracking skills were very limited and useless in such conditions, normally I tracked blood when I had hit my target hunting. Some times, rarely but some times I could follow actual tracks.

Back at the guard shack I made a mental note of the fact that mystery vehicle was still parked here. I rolled around the idea of calling Chief Irons, he did want to know if I seen anything suspious, lonely vehicle here with no driver is as about as suspious as it gets. I pulled out my cell phone just as a set of high beam headlights blinded me in my guard shack. Wincing I put the phone away and came out to greet yet another visitor.

"Chief Irons, I-I was just about to call you." I was motioning to the parked car as the rotund ball of stress made his way over.

"No need, his girl friend reported him missing today, he didn't come home last night." He nodded to the car.

"Wait he is still here? I patrolled the whole place…wait! I found evidence that someone had walked into the woods…" I blinked and paled a little. Had the cannibals seriously came here to snatch a guard? Did they lure him into the woods?

"You what?" Iron's eyes narrowed, scrutinizing me.

"I was following a set of oddly wet boot-prints; they lead me to the wood-line in the back, sir." I watched at the man licked the inside of his cheek.

"Show me." His tone was some where between a demand and a command but it was very close to the same. We walked hastily through the concrete walk ways. I followed the exact path until we were staring at the tree-line a mere hundred feet away. Before I could even say anything Chief Irons was stomping, kind of hard to do anything less as a heavy person in the mud, into the woods. I hadn't noticed until now but he was carrying a heavy revolver in his hand, hammer back. With no hesitation I followed suit, meter to his left, and behind him. My gun was ready flashlight out. There were no words shared for the first several yards, once the vegetation got thick enough to crackle and snap under out weight we both stiffened, I knew the smell, I hated that I got hungry before I got sickened. It was blood, lots of blood.


End file.
